Chapter Four Hundred and Fifty-Three - Social Fu

My friends and I took over a table in a corner of the Hop On Inn, the three of us sitting across from the grenoil we'd... encouraged to follow us.

"That's so ambitious!" I said with a gasp. "You must be very brave to want to do something like that."

The grenoil squirmed in his seat a little. "It's not that impossible," he said. Reaching over, he grabbed the pint of cool beer that Calamity had ordered for him at the counter and took a swallow.

His name was Emile, and after I told Calamity not to scare him so much and helped him carry his things, he really opened up. His dream was to become a sort of trader, bringing goods to delvers and people in outposts away from major cities for a tidy markup.

I felt a little dirty, using all of my friend-making skills to schmooze up to Emile, but it was for a good cause. I said sorry on Calamity's behalf, then insisted that he looked tired and road-weary before dragging him to the inn.

I didn't even have time to catch up with the innkeeper, not if I wanted to get to the bottom of what Emile knew.

"It, ah, it is kind of brave," Awen said. She'd been helping me in her own way, encouraging Emile by asking questions and sometimes repeating what he said back to him. It was working surprisingly well. "Delvers can be hard to work with, I think."

"Oh, they can be," Emile agreed. "But I've been working around them for years now. They need certain things, and they always ask for them too late."

"Too late?" I asked.

He nodded seriously. "Do you have any idea how often a delver team will ask for six hundred metres of strong, fire-proof rope the day before they need it? It happened to me twice! Twice! And they expected me to deliver it right then and there, as if I could just vomit it up for them. It's impossible to explain to them that their impossible demands are impossible too. It's very frustrating. But the gold... it's good gold. Some of them don't have an idea of what anything is worth. They make up for those that count off every copper and weigh every silver."

"I'm sure you do well," I said encouragingly. "You just need to put in a bit of work, and make the right friends. We do a lot of adventuring for the Exploration guild, I think that could also be an untapped market for you."

Emile hadn't exactly shared his dream with me the conventional way. I'd gotten it out of him with a quick use of Friendmaking, and then I just pushed the conversation that way. After that, it was easy to keep him going. He was on his second beer, and was a lot more chatty and agreeable than when we'd started.

"Yeah, that could be nice," he said. "But I'm not quite ready yet. There's still so much to look into. Distributors, hiring runners, setting up some sort of transportation system. I'm years away from having a proper business."

"Mhm!" I said with a nod. "Still, I'm very impressed that you're working on it already. But, ah... well, would you mind if I asked you a question? It's about your current client."

Elmie hesitated. "I don't know. Keeping my client's information to myself is important, you know."

"I get it," I said. "Well... maybe answer this, did your clients ask about bun food because they had a bun with them?"

"That's... possible," he said evasively.

"A bun woman? About... hmm, a few years older than me. Like, a young adult? Brown hair and ears? Glasses?"

"Yeah," he said.

"Did they mention her name?" I asked.

Emile shifted in his seat. "I really shouldn't say," he said. "This client is... hard to work with, but they pay well."

"I get it," I said. "But we're really desperately looking for our friend. Her name is Booksie, and she was kidnapped, right out of her shop too. It's her dream store. A little bookstore right in the middle of Port Royal. She'd been working for years and years to get it going, and it's only been working well recently. Though she did have trouble with some of the gangs before they were taken over by Cholondee."

Emile's face scrunched up in sympathy. He held his beer in both hands, and didn't meet my gaze. "Well... look, my clients have a little compound up the road towards Port Royal. I pop over there to supply them. It's something like an outpost, but smaller. When I went there this morning to get a list of what they needed, they had this bun woman."

"Yeah?" I asked.

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"She looked a bit rough? Hair a mess, and she was in a roughed-up nightgown. She didn't look happy to be there, and had a few guards around her. Anyway. They said they needed supplies to keep a bun fed, and so I added that to the shipping list."

I held back a gasp. That had to be Booksie. And if it wasn't... well, it sounded like someone that needed help anyway. "That might be our friend," I said. "She was kidnapped from her store this morning. Or late last night, maybe."

"Would that be long enough to get from Port Royal to this outpost?" Calamity asked.

"It's an hour up the road if you jog the entire way," Emile said. "It's another six hours at a quick pace to Port Royal. Keep in mind, my class lets me move quickly on the roads, especially on delivery. You could make it from Port Royal to the outpost in a morning if you were quick."

"Thanks, Emile," I said. "Could you let us know where that outpost is?"

"Oh, sure," he replied easily. Then he gave some vague instructions on how to find it. It was mostly just off the road leading to Port Royal, some ways past the dungeon we were just at.

I fished around in my pouches, and found a small coin which I placed on the table. It should be enough to pay for a light meal, or another round. "We have to head out. I, uh, think that maybe you should stay in Rockstack. That might be for the best."

"Oh," he said. He eyed the three of us, paying particular attention to the weapons my friends had. "Right. I can do that."

I smiled one last time before leaving the Inn with my friends. "We have to rescue her," I said.

"Think it's worth getting reinforcements first?" Calamity asked. "Sounds like there'll be quite a few of them at this outpost."

"Jean-Pierre," I said. "He seems pretty strong, and he has a bunch of recruits with him too. Some of them look pretty tough!"

"That could work," Awen said. "Fighting kidnappers isn't ..." she paused, glancing down at herself. Mumbling under her breath, she started counting things off on her fingers, but seemed to give up when she'd used an entire hand. "... Actually, it is pretty common for us--I mean, the Exploration guild--to fight kidnappers. The recruits could probably use the training."

It was a pretty fantastic idea, I thought.

"Jean-Pierre and the others are probably heading our way," I said. "We can meet them on the road, turn around, rescue Booksie, and be back to Port Royal before the city is drowned in dragon lightning!"

It was a plan!

But first... I sent my friends ahead of me and darted over to the general store. The grenoil at the counter eyed me warily. That look grew to outright suspicion when I found a spade on a rack to one side and placed it on the counter.

"What's zis for?" he asked.

"It's a spade?" I said. "It's mostly for digging."

"And who will you be burying with it?" he asked.

I blinked. "Oh! You think this is to bury Emile! Because we threatened him earlier? No, he's fine. He's at the inn right now. This is for threatening someone else."

He sold me the spade, but I noticed that he charged a bit more than the price on the tag and he didn't stop giving me a look until I was out of the door and bouncing off after my friends.

It only took a minute or two to catch up, and soon all three of us were running down the road, moving fast enough that the air rushing past felt like a strong wind.

Rockstack fell behind, and soon enough we were almost at the dungeon again. Jean-Pierre and the others were all on the road just off the little side-path leading to the dungeon itself. He saw us coming and frowned as we ran over. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon," he said.

I gasped for air for a moment, then nodded as I caught my breath. "We have a lead," I said. Then I had to explain about running into Emile in Rockstack, and about how Booksie--or a bun that fit her description--was just down the road from us.

"Huh," he said. "Zat's unexpected. But it's not ze most outlandish zing I've ever heard either. Why didn't you go to Mathilde with zis?"

"We don't have the time," I said, and if a bit of tension slipped into my voice, no one commented on it. "If it is Booksie, she could be moved to a new location at any moment. It's better for us to act while this lead is hot." I took a deep breath. "But we don't know what we'll find. We could really use your help."

Jeanne-Pierre rubbed his chin. "Give me a minute to consider," he said.

***